Ghazal 173, Verse 11

{173,11}*

1) consider it to be an enchantment/talisman
of the treasury of meaning--
2) the word that, Ghalib, would come into my verses

Notes:

:tilism : 'A talisman; enchantment, magic;
a mystery; mystical devices or characters; an image (or other object) upon
which such devices or characters are engraved or inscribed (contrived for
the purpose of preserving from enchantment, or from a variety of evils, &c.)'.
(Platts p.753)

It is a treasury because numerous meanings are in it; and
it is an enchantment because various aspects emerge from it. It's obvious
that an enchantment is broken with difficulty, and is astonishing/stupefying.
In the same way, my difficult poetry is solved, and through its meanings astonishment
is created. In short, the simile
of an 'enchantment' for a word is extremely eloquent [badii((].
(194)

An 'enchantment' is a building that, in order to keep a treasury,
is made with such devices that the non-knower would not be able to set foot
in it; and if he would leave, then he would emerge only by dying. Indeed,
the knower reaches it, and also takes out the treasury....

Oh Ghalib, consider the word that would come into my poetry
to be an enchantment of a treasury of meanings. That is, my poetry is understood
with difficulty. But when it is understood, then one learns that a treasury
has been obtained. (340)

FWP:

The word 'enchantment' [:tilism] with
its wide range of meanings is at the heart of this verse. The definition given
by Platts contains begins with the idea of a 'tilism' as a 'talisman' (a direct
borrowing)-- something to ward off enchantment, along with other dangers,
by means of either Divine or magical power. That's a piquant meaning in its
own right: such a 'talisman' could be a small object, or even a special phrase,
or even a single word-- and a 'talisman of the treasury of meaning' could
be any single word from Ghalib's poetry.

But the dominant meaning of 'tilism' in classical Urdu literature
comes from the dastan world, and especially from the story of Hamzah.
Since I've explained all this elsewhere, I won't go into it at length (this
account is the most detailed one). The commentators have
pointed out some of the associations of a 'tilism', or enchanted world-- amazing,
even stupefying, events and sights; mystery; inaccessibility; a general incomprehensibility
that reduces one to helplessness; the inability to get out by any normal means.

Nazm suggests that such a 'tilism' is usually made in order
to conceal and protect some (magical or other) treasure; this is possible,
but by no means necessary. 'Tilisms' can be like labyrinths: a labyrinth may
conceal some treasure, or it may merely be designed to create confusion, mystery,
helplessness, fear. The difference is that finding the way out of a labyrinth,
though it may be magically facilitated, in principle can also be accomplished
by human cleverness (a long ball of string, a trail of breadcrumbs, etc.).
By contrast, a 'tilism' is a completely magic world, and one can only emerge
from it by magical means or by Divine assistance: by finding the right object,
by performing the right action, or-- of course-- by saying the right word.

The invocation of a 'tilism' is thus more multi-faceted than
the commentators allow, for a 'tilism' is inherently a sort of fake, a simulacrum
of a world: the things you find in it are almost never what they seem. When
the it's broken it bursts like a bubble, and almost everything in it vanishes
(though sometimes one particular special thing, the object of the hero's quest,
survives). So in this verse Ghalib has identified his poetry with a complex
and morally ambiguous kind of 'enchantment'. And he's left us to revolve all
the various possibilities in our mind-- and after they've all revolved once,
we have to revolve them again, still without finding any way to pin them down--
lots of revolution, but no resolution. We wander around in the possibilities
of this verse the way one would wander in a labyrinth-- or a 'tilism'.